58 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
thus will put himself into my place, will, I venture to 
believe, acquit me of everything but a very sensible 
intention to carry out, as I might be able, the object at 
which we had been at so much pains to arrive. 
And I did not dislike this island. ‘A good island; 
may God bless it,’ people had said in the priest’s paper. 
And these words had stuck in my head. 
But, to be sure, my thoughts were not shared by all. 
Our old Greenland hands had conceived a very immov- 
able prejudice against this place. They could not 
imagine what in the world any one could want with 
such a miserable-looking and inhospitable district. No 
whales, if we except a beluga who showed for a moment 
at the Gusina mouth—no bears—nothing that seemed to 
them worth the trying for. 
And this part of the consideration weighed much with 
my friend, and very naturally, as I could not but admit. 
For not every one is so much concerned in flowers and 
birds and objects of nature that he will venture himself 
for them into the unknown. And toa keen sportsman 
ever hoping for large game worth the killing it seemed 
indeed a promise of disappointment. So, very wisely, 
Powys determined that he would journey still further 
afield. ‘To Novaya Zemblya he would go, and he went, 
for bigger quarry. 
He was very much set against my purpose. He urged 
that I might not find these people, and what should I 
do then, with much to the same effect. I acknowledged 
